


feel it in the air

by fallingthorns



Series: feel it in the air [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Exes to Lovers, Getting Back Together, Hawaiian vacation, M/M, Reunion, Sharing a Bed, Summer Romance, Summer Vacation, exes to husbands, sex included but not like graphic?, they are dumb what can i say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingthorns/pseuds/fallingthorns
Summary: “Oh, what the fuck,” Richie says into the phone. “Eddie is here.”“What.” Stan deadpans through the phone.“Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak, my ex-husband. The one I am obviously still in love with. You know the one. He’s here.”“He’s there.” Stan states slowly. “In Kauai. The week of your anniversary.”“Yeah,” Richie says, looking up at the sky and letting the sun blind him. Maybe it’ll take him out of his misery. “What the fuck.”--Or, after five years apart, Richie and Eddie finally have a chance to reunite under the Hawaiian sun.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: feel it in the air [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941880
Comments: 27
Kudos: 353





	feel it in the air

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Заряженный воздух (feel it in the air)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29678778) by [Fil_l](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fil_l/pseuds/Fil_l)



> SO THIS. GOT AWAY FROM ME. This is my final ode to summer.
> 
> I made a tweet along the lines of, "people think that I would make Richie and Eddie get divorced. Hilarious. Hysterical." and then Levi went, "Wait actually that could be good." And now here we are, 15k later.
> 
> While they do start divorced, I promise there is a happy ending and that their divorce was because they were dumb and loved each other too much.
> 
> Title is from Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey
> 
> Content warnings: alcohol mentions, emet because it's Richie, non-graphic sex scenes, general angst that comes with divorce.

* * *

5 YEARS AGO - 2017

* * *

“England? Full time?”

“Yeah. I interviewed for a remote job, but they want me in the office. Doubled my salary and benefits package to get me there.”

“When do you have to decide?”

“By the end of the week.”

* * *

PRESENT DAY - 2021

* * *

DAY 1

This might be the worst day of Richie’s life.

Granted, the last five years haven’t been that great for him and could definitely qualify as the worst five years of Richie’s life. But at least he is in Hawaii for what is currently the next episode of what really should be a reality show titled: Richie Tozier’s Life is a Shitshow.

He really should talk to Netflix about making that his next stand-up special.

“Are you absolutely sure there are no flights back?” Richie asks the man at the counter, his hand rubbing his forehead and brushing his sweaty hair away from it. “Like, none? In the next week? How is that even possible?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the man says, clicking at his computer. “All flights to the mainland have been suspended for the next seven days in anticipation of Tropical Storm Leviticus.”

“Would it help at all if I told you I was a celebrity?” Richie asks, voice desperate. He hates pulling the celebrity card, but he has two live shows this coming week, he turned his rental car in already, and he already checked out of the hotel he was staying at.

“I’m familiar with your work,” the man says, smiling. “Could I actually get an autograph for my son?”

“I – what? I guess,” Richie replies. He pulls a pen out of his pocket and signs his now useless ticket before handing it to the man, waving at him as he walks away from the counter. He heads outside into the warm Hawaiian sun, bags trailing behind him as he drags them off and searches for somewhere to sit.

Richie collapses onto a bench outside of the airport, dropping his head into his hands and resting his elbows on his knees. He takes a deep breath and counts backwards from ten, channeling the breathing techniques his therapist taught him. He gently tugs at the chain around his neck, pulling it out from where it hides under the collar of his shirt, and he wraps his fist around the ring that hangs from the end of the chain.

He can’t be here this week. He can’t, he can’t, he absolutely cannot be here. Not just because of his two shows that are coming up. No, he could reschedule those if he wanted to.

Their fifteenth wedding anniversary would have been in five days.

For the past five years, he’s celebrated the day alone with a bottle of whiskey and the greasiest pizza he can find in Los Angeles, and he intended to keep it that way for their fifteenth anniversary. He knows he still went on the dumb Hawaii trip they promised each other they would take for the anniversary, but he did it a week before the actual date. So it obviously didn’t count and was just a coincidence. Right. Yeah. Because that would have been incredibly pathetic of him to take an anniversary vacation by himself, especially since they’ve been divorced for five years and have only talked a handful of times since Eddie moved across the ocean.

Richie lets out a sigh and pulls out his phone, scrolling through his contacts and finding Stan’s number. Stan answers on the third ring.

“Hey, Rich. Your flight hasn’t left yet?”

“Cancelled,” Richie sighs. “For the next week. Are you okay to watch the cats for a little bit longer?”

“The next week?” Stan asks. “Is it because of that storm that’s going to pass through?”

“Yeah. Unfortunately. I have to get my rental car back and find somewhere to stay for the next week.”

“Don’t worry about the cats,” Stan says instantly. “Bonk has already broken all of our glasses. It’s fine.”

“Sorry. I’ll buy you some new ones once I’m back.” Richie sighs and rubs a hand over his eyes again, sniffing and telling himself that he absolutely will not cry about being stuck on a beautiful tropical island for the next week.

“Hey. Rich. Are you okay?” Stan asks, and there’s genuine concern in his voice now. “With like. What’s coming up this week?”

“No,” Richie deadpans, figuring that there’s no need to hide now, not from his one friend who he’s known his whole life. “Honestly, I feel like shit.”

Richie removes his hand from his eyes, blinking and squinting at the sudden blinding brightness from the sun. He tries to focus on one of the people still in the airport, waiting for his vision to be less spotty and cloudy so that he can put his glasses back on and head back over to the car rental.

“It’s okay to feel like that,” Stan says through the phone as Richie puts his glasses back on. “I think it’s understandable, man, given everything that happened. It’s not like you can just turn your feelings off –”

Stan keeps talking and Richie is vaguely listening, but he is squinting at the person he was trying to focus on earlier. He’s still far away, still inside the airport and next to the luggage carousel, and Richie can only see the back of him, but Richie swears he would recognize that ass anywhere –

And then the man turns around, and it’s all over for Richie.

“Oh, what the fuck,” Richie says into the phone, standing up and grabbing his suitcase. “Eddie is here.”

“What.” Stan deadpans through the phone.

“Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak, my ex-husband,” Richie says. “The one I am obviously still in love with. You know the one. He’s here.”

“He’s there.” Stan states slowly. “In Kauai. The week of your anniversary.”

“Yeah,” Richie says, looking up at the sky and letting the sun blind him this time. Maybe it’ll take him out of his misery. “What the fuck.”

“What the fuck is right.”

Richie keeps watching him out of the corner of his eye. Eddie grabs his suitcase from the carousel and turns and starts heading out of the airport and directly towards Richie.

“He can’t see me,” Richie hisses into the phone. “What the fuck, Stan, there’s no place to _hide –_ ”

Richie spins in a circle, searching for something to stand behind, and by the time he comes back around and completes his 360-degree turn for the third time, Eddie is standing right in front of him.

“Shit,” Richie sighs into the phone. “I gotta go.”

“I’m assuming he saw you. You’re not exactly small and you are a fairly distinct person.”

“Yeah. Bye, Stan.”

“Call me later if you need to talk, Rich. I’m serious.”

Richie hangs up the phone and slides it into his pocket, looking over Eddie’s shoulder and at the airport behind him. It’s easier this way, he thinks, not having to look directly at Eddie when all he wants to do is wrap him in his arms and never let him go. He doesn’t want to notice how Eddie has a few more creases in his forehead and next to his eyes, or how his arms are a little more defined in his t-shirt, or how his eyes are still just as big and wide as they were, or how –

“Would you fucking look at me?” He hears Eddie’s voice snap, breaking him out of his reverie. “Why were you spinning in circles like a moron?”

Richie lets his gaze drop down to Eddie’s and he feels his heart tighten in his chest as their eyes meet. It feels like it did that fateful day five years ago, the day their lives completely changed because neither of them could live with the thought of there ever being any animosity between them. The day Eddie came home from work saying he interviewed for a new job and got it, but it was overseas. Double the salary. A job he actually would like and not dread going to every day. But they wanted an answer by the end of the week, and Richie’s job was firmly rooted in California.

They argued, and Eddie made spreadsheets and diagrams and lists, and Richie kept saying he would follow him, he would, no questions asked, and Eddie kept saying he couldn’t ask him to do that, that he would stay, absolutely he would stay, and Richie said he couldn’t ask him to do that, and in the end, neither of them could make a decision. Neither of them wanted to risk the other’s happiness and they didn’t want that stress on their relationship.

“Uh,” Richie stammers. “Would you believe me if I said I was trying to find a place to hide?”

“Yes, actually,” Eddie says with a sigh. Richie watches as he rubs a hand across his face before pulling his sunglasses back down and over his eyes. “Fuck. How is this my life right now?”

Richie shrugs, his hand gripping the handle to his suitcase, clenching and unclenching his fist before letting the handle go entirely. He is stranded in Hawaii with no car, no hotel room and no place to sleep, his ex-husband is standing right in front of him, and it’s five days before what should have been their fifteenth anniversary. Richie kind of wishes the ground would just swallow him whole right now.

Richie sits back down, all but collapsing back into the bench. He pushes his sunglasses up so they’re resting on the top of his head, and he buries his face in his hands again and groans.

“Rich?” He hears Eddie say, and then he feels him sit down on the bench next to him. “Sorry, should I just, should I go?”

“No, no,” Riche mumbles. “Sorry, just. Shit has completely hit the fan in the past hour. No flights to the mainland for the next week. No rental car. No hotel room booked. I have to call my manager and cancel two of my live shows since I won’t be back for them. And now . . .”

Richie trails off, not wanting to say that running into his incredibly hot ex-husband who he is definitely still in love with belongs on the list of shitty things that have happened in the past hour.

Richie startles when he feels Eddie’s hand on his shoulder. He slides his glasses back down onto his face and looks at him. Eddie is watching him, his eyes drawn and concerned while his hand squeezes at his shoulder gently. “I have a rental car waiting already,” Eddie says softly, his eyes watching Richie’s face in a way that makes Richie want to hide. “I can drive you to your hotel, or. To the car rental service or wherever you need to be. Or.”

Eddie trails off and bites his lip, and Richie wants to reach out and rest his hand on Eddie’s thigh. “Or?”

“I can just. Um. Change my room reservation to a room with two beds. And you can just stay with me so you don’t have to just get some shitty room at a motel or pay out the asshole for a nice room at last minute?” Eddie asks it with uncertainty, his voice wavering at the end, like even he isn’t sure if this is a good idea.

“Did you forget that I am a moderately well-known celebrity, Eds?” Richie asks, letting out a small laugh and shaking his head. “I have money.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie says, and Richie flinches a little at the slight bite in Eddie’s words. Eddie sighs and lets go of Richie’s shoulder before standing up, straightening out his shirt and grabbing his suitcase.

Richie gets up and grabs his own luggage. He feels his shoulders drooping as he shrugs. “I’ll take a ride, but let me call some hotels and see if I can find anything of my own,” Richie says after a minute, following Eddie towards the rental car parking lot. “I really don’t want to impose on your vacation.”

Eddie turns suddenly, and Richie has to stop before he collides into him and sends them both into the parking lot asphalt. He blinks and bites his lip, close to Eddie due to their near collision, close enough that their noses are almost touching and that Richie can see every speck of Eddie’s eyes.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know why I’m here,” Eddie says softly, his voice almost a whisper with a slight crack at the end. He clears his throat and turns his head to the side, looking down at the ground next to Richie. “Don’t. It’s not a coincidence we’re both here in Kauai at the same time, Rich. Not this week.”

Richie nods, his hand coming up to rest on Eddie’s arm before he can even think about it. He squeezes gently and smiles softly at him when Eddie glances back up at him. “You’re right,” Richie whispers, dropping his hand back down. “You’re right. It’s not a coincidence.”

* * *

“How are there literally no rooms available anywhere?” Richie asks when he hangs up the phone for the eleventh time, leaning his head against the headrest and groaning. “I found one at a motel, but it has fucking awful reviews –”

“You are absolutely not staying in a motel,” Eddie deadpans, not taking his eyes off the road. Richie watches as his hands grip the steering wheel, the tendons in his fingers popping and revealing just how forcefully Eddie is gripping it. Richie wants to lean over, wants to lay a hand on Eddie’s knee to get him to relax, wants to plant a kiss to his temple until he lets out a deep sigh. He wants, wants, wants. “Do you know how many fucking cockroaches you would find? Not to mention lice, or even worse –”

“Okay, Eds,” Richie says, voice soft. He gives Eddie a soft smile as he glances over at him. “Okay. No motel. I’ll only crash with you until they have a room available.”

Eddie nods, turning back to the road almost instantly, as if he was never even looking at Richie at all. Richie watches him for a moment longer before leaning his head against the window, letting his eyes shut for just a second as he takes in the events of the day. It almost doesn’t seem real, that he’s sitting in this rental car with his ex-husband, stranded in Hawaii because of an incoming tropical storm.

Richie thinks he must have dozed off, because the next he knows, he’s blinking awake to the sound of Eddie’s car door slamming shut. He blinks again and adjusts his glasses before scrambling with his seatbelt and climbing out of the car. He grabs his luggage from the trunk, thinking about how he has no clean clothes left. He really hopes Eddie’s hotel room at least has a washer and drier.

“At least let me pay for the room,” Richie says as they near the check-in counter. He looks around, noting that the hotel is nice. Luxurious. Similar to the one he had stayed in by himself the past week.

“No,” Eddie retorts. “You already spent a week here. I’m assuming you paid for a hotel for that?”

“Yeah, but I can afford it,” Richie replies. “Seriously, Eds, just let me –”

“I can afford it, too,” Eddie says again, his voice softer as he pulls his wallet out of his carry-on bag. He clears his throat and pulls out his ID to hand to the check-in clerk. “I don’t exactly make pennies anymore.”

Richie blinks and opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out. He closes his mouth again and shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets before nodding. “Okay.”

The reminder of why exactly they ended things five years ago still makes Richie’s insides churn. It’s never sat right with him, the ending of their marriage after ten years. He knows they probably made a rash decision, and he knows it was in part due to their combined stubbornness and inability to even fathom a marriage of unhappiness. But Richie absolutely did not want Eddie to stay and resent him in the future if he ever regretted giving up that job opportunity.

“What do you mean you don’t have any available upgrades?” Richie hears Eddie’s voice, sharp and distinct, cutting through his thoughts. He glances over and sees Eddie frowning at the concierge, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I am so sorry, sir, we are all booked up and there are no available rooms to switch with –”

“But we need more than one bed,” Eddie says, gesturing between him and Richie. “There’s more than one of me now.”

“It is a king-sized bed, sir, I think –”

“It’s fine, Eds,” Richie cuts in, wanting to save the young concierge from any more of Eddie’s anger. “We’ll make it work. Do you guys have a roll-out cot you could send up?”

“We do, sir,” he says, biting his lip and looking at Richie. “But, ah, it’s about six feet long only –”

“Of fucking course it is,” Eddie mumbles, looking up at the ceiling and taking a deep breath. “Okay, okay. It’s fine. One king sized bed is fine.”

Richie watches as Eddie is handed the room keys, and Eddie hands one to Richie before turning and heading towards the elevator. Richie grabs his luggage and jogs to catch up, sliding into the elevator before the doors shut behind Eddie.

“I can sleep on the couch or something,” Richie says, biting his lip and trying to break the tension that Eddie is exuding right now. “Seriously, Eds, I can –”

“It’s fine,” Eddie exhales, taking a deep breath and letting his head thunk against the elevator wall. “Sorry, I just. This is a lot for me, too.”

Richie nods and shoves his hands back into his pockets, looking at the floor counter of the elevator and wondering if he would almost prefer the world to swallow him whole. He doesn’t know how he is going to survive the next week with Eddie, knowing he has to hide that he’s still absolutely in love with him and that he regrets their decision to split every single day.

He has no idea how he is going to fucking manage it. And he has no idea what Eddie thinks about anything.

 _He’s here on your anniversary trip by himself, just like you were,_ the voice in Richie’s head tells him. _You don’t take an anniversary trip by yourself unless you –_

Richie shakes his head and focuses on the wall again.

Once in the room, Richie sets his bag down by the window and glances at the bed. True to the concierge’s word, it is a king-sized bed. The room is nice, crisp and white with hints and accents of turquoise scattered throughout. Richie opens the sliding door to the balcony, pulling the screen closed and listening to the sound of the ocean just a few hundred feet outside of their room. There’s a great view from the balcony, and Richie can imagine him and Eddie in a different life sitting outside, Eddie in Richie’s lap and playing with his hand as the talks about what they ate for dinner and the cake they shared for dessert and the Mai Tais they drank.

“There’s a washer and drier,” Richie hears Eddie say from the opposite side of the room. “Do you need –”

“Yeah, actually,” Richie says before Eddie can finish his sentence, clearing his throat when his voice comes out scratchy. “Let me just –”

“I can do it,” Eddie replies absently, opening the washer and looking for the detergent in the cabinet over it. “I want to wash my airplane clothes, anyway.”

“Uh, okay,” Richie says, trying desperately not to think about the fact that Eddie is going to do his laundry, something he did absently and without a second thought for ten years. Richie rolls his suitcase over towards the washer and opens it, cringing as Eddie looks at all of his rolled up clothes and lets out a sigh.

“Really,” Eddie deadpans, reaching down to gather a handful of Richie’s clothes. “You couldn’t even fold them?”

“Why would I? They’re dirty.”

“You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

Eddie puts the clothes into the washer before shrugging out of his own t-shirt, casually dropping it in on top of Richie’s clothes. Richie blinks at him and he thinks that Eddie didn’t even realize that it might not be totally normal to strip your shirt in front of your ex-husband who you haven’t seen in five years.

It really should be weirder, Richie thinks, being in Eddie’s presence again after so long. But Eddie is pretty much the same as he remembers, all hard lines and toned arms, big eyes and hair slicked back by maybe a little bit less mousse than he used before. It feels like coming home, and that makes Richie’s heart ache.

Richie tries hard not to stare, forcing his eyes to stay upright and staring at the wall and not allowing them to wander down Eddie’s chest. He can’t. He won’t.

Richie spins in a circle and walks back off towards the balcony. He slides the screen door open again and goes outside, collapsing into the cushioned chair and letting out a sigh. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and shoots a text to Stan letting him know he’s alive before placing it facedown on the coffee table in front of him.

This is a bad idea. He knows it is, he can feel it. He feels like shit thinking about how the past five years have been for him, how he’s felt like he’s just been going through the motions of life and how he has to keep himself from calling Eddie on their anniversary every single year. And now, Eddie is here, in Kauai, and they’ll likely be seeing each other and staying in the same room for what would have been their fifteenth wedding anniversary.

Richie picks his phone back up, suddenly reminded that he needs to postpone his shows for the coming week. He dials Bev’s number, letting her know what’s happening and that he’ll be stuck in Hawaii for the coming week. Bev, bless her golden, fiery heart, is completely understanding and tells him that she’ll handle everything. They hang up, and Richie is, not for the first time, incredibly thankful that he decided to sack his old manager and hire a new one.

“Rich?” Eddie’s voice calls from within the room again. “Do you want to order anything from room service for dinner?”

Richie takes a deep breath again and closes his eyes for a moment. Hearing Eddie say “Rich” shouldn’t be anything unusual, so many people in his life call him that, but – there just always was something different with the way Eddie said it, with the way his lips formed around the words and how it rolled off of his tongue.

They order room service and eat it in the small kitchenette in silence. Richie picks at his fries, ignoring the way he can feel Eddie glancing over at him every few seconds but without offering any words of his own.

Richie knows they could have kept in touch; their split was amicable enough and was not due to a lack of love or a change of heart. They were each other’s best friends since the age of 21; it really would have made sense for them to have kept in touch.

But.

Richie always felt like he would have seemed needy, desperate. He didn’t want to seem like he was angry at Eddie for leaving, didn’t want to come off as desperate for him to return. It was just easier for him to accept that their relationship was over and that it was a new era in his life.

Or so he told himself.

Richie rubs his hand over his chest, feeling the ring imprinted underneath his shirt. Fuck. Shit. So. He absolutely needs to make sure Eddie never sees the wedding ring he wears on a chain around his neck. Absolutely not.

“Um, so –” Eddie starts as he sets his fork down, taking a drink of his water before clearing his throat. “What . . . what have you been up to?”

Richie blinks at him for a moment before setting down his own fork on his empty plate. “Uh, just, you know. Working. I’ve had a few new specials on Netflix. I took up voice acting recently. Fired my old manager.”

“I’ve seen them,” Eddie replies quietly. “All of them.”

Richie blinks at him and takes a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling and wishing again for a bolt of lightning to come down and smite him. “Eds,” he murmurs after a moment, swallowing hard and taking a sip of his water.

“I know,” Eddie whispers. “I know. Sorry.”

Richie takes their plates and puts them back on the tray just to give his hands something to do. He sets the tray outside the hotel room door and locks it up again before turning back to Eddie.

“Any, uh . . .” Eddie trails off, and Richie sees a faint blush spread across his cheeks. “Anybody in your life you need to, ah, call? About your situation?”

“I already called Stan to make sure he’s okay to watch the cats,” Richie deadpans, knowing full well that’s not what Eddie was asking.

“Cats?” Eddie asks with a frown. “Wait, Stan? Nobody else is watching your cats?”

“I’m not seeing anyone, Eddie,” Richie sighs, rubbing his hand across his face. “If that’s what you were asking. I haven’t really – there hasn’t been anything serious.”

Eddie nods and looks down at the table again, and Richie wants to ask, wants to know where Eddie’s head is at, wants to know what he is thinking and if he’s seeing anybody, Eddie could be waiting for a boyfriend to join him on the trip for all he knows, that would be so fucking embarrassing –

“Me neither,” Eddie supplies. “Not right now, anyway. There was – someone, a year or so ago. Didn’t work though. Didn’t last more than a few months.”

Richie feels a little bile rise in his throat thinking of Eddie with someone else, Eddie trying to love another man, trying to move on and be happy and –

“I need to – bathroom,” Richie says quickly before he all but sprinting towards the bathroom. He drops in front of the toilet as the dinner he just ate makes its way back up.

God, so fucking embarrassing. It’s been five years, he shouldn’t be yearning so fucking hard over his ex-husband, he shouldn’t – it’s not –

“Hey,” he hears Eddie whisper, and then Eddie is right behind him, his hand rubbing gentle circles along Richie’s back. “I know this is a lot for you, Rich. I know. I’m so fucking sorry.”

His words are drawn out, heavy with meaning, and Richie wonders if he’s talking about more than just the happenings of the current day.

Richie grabs a towel and wipes his mouth with it, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes. He focuses on Eddie’s hand still on his back, the gentle weight of it enough to soothe Richie’s thoughts and calm his nerves a bit.

“Sorry,” Richie whispers after a few moments, his eyes still closed. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” Eddie whispers, and Richie knows now that they're talking about more than just the day. “Let’s get into bed.”

* * *

By the time Richie is showered with a t-shirt and pajama bottoms on, Eddie is already curled on his side of the bed, under the covers and facing the wall. Richie blinks when he realizes that Eddie still sleeps on his side of the bed, the same side he slept on all those years they slept together.

Richie’s always slept on the same side the past five years.

But now, he stands next to his side of the bed, contemplating if he should actually get in the bed or just suck it up and go sleep on the couch.

“Get in, idiot,” Eddie mumbles from the other side. He glances over his shoulder at Richie, and Richie raises an eyebrow at him. “Come on. I don’t bite.”

“I know that’s not true, babe,” Richie says with a laugh, the pet name slipping out of his mouth before he can even think to stop it. He freezes and notices that Eddie does the same, his eyes wide as he looks at Richie with a raised eyebrow. “Uh. Sorry.”

“. . . It’s fine,” Eddie says after a few moments, rolling back so that he’s facing the wall again. Richie lets out a deep breath. “Just get in.”

Richie pulls back the blanket and climbs under it, turning off the bedside lamp before settling in. He can feel the warmth from Eddie next to him as he turns so his back is facing him. How the hell is he going to sleep when Eddie is literally less than two feet away from him –

Richie blinks as he feels Eddie turn over, and he glances over his shoulder to see Eddie staring at him.

“Can I help you?” Richie asks, furrowing his brow at Eddie before turning over to face him. He folds an arm and tucks it under his pillow, looking at Eddie with a raised eyebrow. “Why are you staring at me?”

“I can feel your anxiety,” Eddie replies, his eyes skimming over Richie’s face. “Neither of us are going to sleep if your aura keeps being that loud.”

“My aura,” Richie deadpans, a laugh slipping out of his mouth before he can stop it. “What do you know about my aura?”

Eddie lets out a low laugh as a small smile creeps onto his face. “There was a time when I knew everything about you, Rich,” he whispers. “Even your aura.”

Richie blinks at him and bites his lip before rolling onto his back and looking up at the ceiling. “You probably still do,” he says after a moment. “I haven’t really changed much.” He feels the bed shift, and he feels that Eddie is now closer to him, his arm reaching out to poke Richie in the arm.

“I’ve missed you,” Eddie murmurs, his hand turning from a poking finger into a flat hand rubbing gently at Richie’s bicep. “I have. I’m not just saying that, either.”

Eddie’s hand is warm on his arm, his fingers sliding up under the sleeve of his shirt and causing goosebumps to sprout along Richie’s skin.

“You could have called,” Richie whispers. “We could have at least kept in touch.”

“I couldn’t do that to you,” he says instantly, voice soft. His hand stills on Richie’s arm, and he props himself up on his elbow so that he’s looking down at Richie. “I didn’t feel like I could do that to you. I didn’t deserve to miss you because I was the one who left.”

“What the fuck,” Richie groans, throwing his other hand over his face. “Eddie. I can’t talk about this right now. We are both too fucking tired.”

He feels Eddie deflate a little next to him, settling back down into his pillow. He slides his hand off of Richie’s arm and tucks it under his pillow. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“Eddie,” Richie sighs. “Sorry, it’s just. Been a fucking day and we’re both exhausted. These conversations need to wait until we’re both in our right minds, okay?”

Eddie nods, and Richie lets out another deep breath, letting himself sag into the mattress.

“Goodnight, Rich,” Eddie says, his voice soft. Richie feels his eyes drooping closed, even though he has no idea how that’s even possible when Eddie is so close to his proximity.

“Goodnight, Eddie baby,” Richie replies, slurring his words a little and far too tired to catch the pet name slipping from his tongue like an afterthought. He’s asleep before he can hear the hitch in Eddie’s breath when he hears the name, and he doesn’t hear when Eddie calls him “Sweetheart” in reply.

* * *

DAY 2

Richie wakes up with an arm draped over his waist and a firm, compact body pressed against his back. He blinks and lets out a small groan, shifting beneath Eddie’s arm. He doesn’t know what time it is; maybe it’s late enough where he can turn around and kiss his husband awake –

Richie’s eyes snap open again as a wave of reality rushes over him and he remembers what his life currently is and why he is in Hawaii and sharing a bed with Eddie. It scares him how natural he feels right now, how at home he feels in Eddie’s arms and with the weight of Eddie behind him. He really shouldn’t be surprised by how quickly his mind was able to snap back to his life from five years ago, but the sudden onset of reality hits him like a cold wave of ocean water.

He should move, but he doesn’t want to wake Eddie and, frankly, he likes how Eddie feels pressed up against him and wrapped around him. He feels secure and loved in a way he hasn’t felt in five years, and he doesn’t quite want the moment to end yet.

Richie plays over their conversation from last night, wondering if Eddie actually meant what he said or if it was just the exhaustion and jetlag talking. Richie knows there’s something there, he _knows_ it, because Eddie is taking a solo trip for what was supposed to be their wedding anniversary vacation. People without feelings or any emotional attachments don’t do that kind of thing.

Logically, Richie knows this. But when it comes to Eddie, Richie is not usually logical.

Maybe Eddie was just using this as an excuse to go on a tropical vacation. Richie assumes he works hard, knows what his job over in England was going to entail. He knows Eddie is fairly high up and that he works hard and actually enjoys his job now. They exchanged maybe a handful of emails over the years, most of which were usually filled with information about their jobs before they finally just trickled away and stopped trying.

Richie doesn’t know if he was thankful for the lack of contact with Eddie. He misses Eddie, obviously he fucking misses Eddie with every fiber of his being. But he didn’t want to reach out and he didn’t want Eddie to feel guilty about leaving him at all. Richie didn’t want him to stay for him; he wanted him to take his dream job and wanted him to live his life how he wanted to live it. And if that was without Richie, then that was fine. As long as Eddie was happy.

But every email in the beginning and every phone call they tried to have made Richie feel a little colder, a little harder, a little sadder. So when the calls and emails fizzled away, Richie maybe did feel a little hint of relief.

Richie feels Eddie shift behind him, his breath emitting gentle puffs against the back of his neck. Eddie’s arm tightens from where it’s around Richie’s waist, and Richie wishes this could last forever. He thinks this is the best he’s slept in years.

“Morning,” Eddie mumbles from behind him, and Richie freezes and thinks that he maybe should have tried to disentangle himself before Eddie woke up.

“Hey,” Richie says quietly, trying to stay as still as possible. If he doesn’t move, maybe Eddie won’t notice, maybe –

Eddie’s hand slides up under the front of Richie’s shirt and plays with the soft hair on his belly. Eddie hums from behind him and buries his face in Richie’s shoulder, and Richie freezes when he feels Eddie softly press his lips next to the hem of his t-shirt. He feels Eddie’s hips press gently against his ass, and oh fuck, Eddie is hard, and his lips are pressing another kiss to Richie’s neck –

“You smell so good,” Eddie mumbles into his neck, his hand sliding down towards the waistband of Richie’s pajama pants. Richie thinks that he needs to make a decision soon, because while he would love more than anything to fuck his ex-husband right here and now, the fact still stands that he’s Richie’s ex-husband.

Eddie’s hips press against his ass again, and Richie lets out a small moan. Richie thinks he’s just about to twist around and kiss him when he feels Eddie’s hand that’s almost under his waistband freeze, and Eddie’s body behind him goes still.

“Oh fuck,” Eddie murmurs, lips still pressed against Richie’s neck. “Shit.”

Richie stays still as Eddie peels himself off of him and flops onto his back. He feels cold from the loss of Eddie’s body heat and from the realization that Eddie probably just fully woke up and realized the situation that was at hand. Richie will absolutely not think about the fact that Eddie clearly still wants him. He won’t. He can’t.

“Sorry,” Eddie says at the ceiling. Richie rolls onto his other side to look at him, propping his head up on his elbow. 

“No sweat, Spagheds,” Richie replies, trying to sound casual and not like he is internally freaking out about what it all means on the inside. “I can’t help that I have a hot bod.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie groans with a small laugh. “I just. Sorry. I think I forgot . . .” Eddie trails off, and Richie’s heart beats once, twice, three times in his chest at what could possibly end Eddie’s sentence. But he knows.

“I did, too,” Richie says softly, because he means it. “Just felt like old times.”

“Yeah.”

They lie there for a few moments longer. Richie stares up at the ceiling and thinks, fuck it –

“I want to,” Richie says, because this whole thing is weird and he feels like a live wire, frayed and exposed and like he could combust at any moment.

“What?” Eddie says, turning to look at Richie from the corner of his eye.

“Just for the record,” Richie says, trying to sound casual. He shrugs. “I would have. I want to. You’re still hot as fuck, Eds.”

Eddie’s mouth opens and shuts, and Richie laughs softly at him before sitting up. He stretches his arms over his head, grinning when he sees Eddie staring at the sliver of skin between the hem of his shirt and the waistband of his pants.

“Ándale, Eduardo,” Richie says as he stands up. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

* * *

Breakfast is uneventful. They eat in silence mostly, Richie scrolling through his phone and showing Eddie pictures of his cats.

“I can’t believe you have cats,” Eddie says around a bite of Eggs Benedict. “Plural.”

Richie shrugs. “I got Bonk about five years ago,” Richie replies, not wanting to directly say that he got him right after the divorce. “Newt and Bernie were from the same litter. Found them outside the Netflix studio in a box and decided to keep them both instead of turning them into the shelter.”

Eddie hums as Richie swipes to the next picture of Bernie and Newt as kittens.

Eddie tells him about England, and Richie listens and tries to ignore the ache it sets in his heart. Eddie is casual about it, and it doesn’t seem like he really likes it all that much. He likes his job and his boss and his coworkers. He has a small flat that he stays in and he’s within walking distance of the office, which he loves. But other than that, Eddie doesn’t have much to say. He doesn’t bring up the man again, the one Eddie was apparently seeing at least for a little bit, which Richie is extremely grateful for because he would actually like to keep his breakfast down.

“Not going to lie, Eds, you would have sounded sexy with an accent.”

Richie thinks that he’s maybe edging the line with all the pet names and the things he’s saying to Eddie, but he can’t bring himself to care. He can just blame the Hawaiian sun that he’s been exposed to for the past week; it messes with his brain.

Eddie shrugs and takes a sip of his water. “Maybe,” he says eventually. “I don’t know. I’m glad I didn’t pick one up, though.”

Richie thinks that he’s not saying something. It almost seems like he’s trying to hide something from Richie, which is ridiculous considering the situation they’re currently in, but Richie is going to try not to festinate on that. He can’t think about what Eddie could possibly be hiding from him when he is probably going to have to spend the next four days with the guy.

Richie pays for breakfast and they leave the restaurant. Eddie demands they find the nearest coffee shop and comes out with two coffees, immediately handing one to Richie. Richie watches as Eddie takes a sip of his, and he has no idea how Eddie has ever been able to drink hot coffee in summer weather, but here he is, five years later, still drinking scorching hot coffee on an 88 degree day in Hawaii.

“Here’s your disgustingly sweet and unhealthy and extremely caffeinated coffee,” Eddie says as he hands Richie’s venti cold brew to him. Richie blinks at it and realizes that he never told Eddie his order, which means that Eddie remembered.

Richie takes a sip and frowns when he tastes it, because it’s exactly like he orders it for himself, except –

“Three pumps of caramel, three pumps of toffee nut, light ice. And then I subbed almond milk so you can at least say _something_ in there is healthy.” Eddie says it all quickly while staring at his own cup.

“Oh.” Richie deadpans. He takes another sip. “You used to order it like that for me.”

Eddie shrugs. “I hope that’s still how you take it?”

“Yeah, yeah. I just forgot about the almond milk,” Richie says. “I never remembered to order that for myself.”

They walk along the sidewalk back towards the hotel in relative silence. Richie thinks it would be so easy to reach out and take Eddie’s hand, but he knows he shouldn’t, knows he _can’t._

It would be easy, Richie thinks, to tell Eddie right now how he feels about their split, how he’s felt about it for the past five years. He could easily just tell him he loves him, that he wants to try and make it work again. They’re simple words and simple phrases, and the fact that Richie thinks Eddie might actually be receptive to him is enough to make him want to at least try.

But.

But he really doesn’t want to deal with the small chance of heartbreak again. If Eddie says he loves him but then goes back to England, everything will be just as it was before. And Richie doesn’t want Eddie to have to choose again. It wouldn’t be fair. Nothing about any of this is fair.

But for now, he’s here with Eddie, walking along the beach and listening as Eddie rants about the barista in the coffee shop. His free hand is flailing as he rants, and Richie would gladly die right now, happy and content to just listen to Eddie talk in his last moments.

They spend the day in the shopping village a mile down from their hotel. Richie thinks it’s convenient and it gives them something to do and something to talk about other than them and their problems. Richie knows they need to talk and that they _should_ talk, but he’s afraid of what he’ll say right now. He still feels vulnerable and a little emotional from the stress of yesterday; he doesn’t feel like he is completely in the right mindset to talk about anything serious today.

As they’re eating a late lunch in a pizzeria, Richie takes a sip of his cold beer and watches Eddie as he talks. His hands move with his words and he swears every ten seconds. Richie thinks he could listen to him talk forever; he really should narrate audiobooks because Richie would buy them all and listen to them on repeat.

“What are we having today?” The waitress asks when she comes back. Richie blinks and grabs the menu that neither of them have even touched yet.

“Uh. Large round, thin crust, barbecue chicken pizza with no onions,” he says quickly, handing her the menu. She writes down the order and smiles at them both, promising them both another round of beers before heading off towards the kitchen.

Richie finishes his glass and sets it down. He looks over at Eddie and finds him blinking at him.

“. . . What?” Richie asks after a second, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Do I have something on my face? We haven’t even eaten anything.”

“No, no,” Eddie says quickly, looking down at the table and shifting his glass onto the coaster. “Sorry. Just. You remembered how I like my pizza.”

“Oh. Yeah. It’s, uh. I guess I did.” Richie didn’t even think about it as he ordered it. He hasn’t ordered that pizza since Eddie left, so he really has no idea how he remembered what to order so quickly.

Eddie is still looking at him, and Richie looks over his shoulder, at the ceiling, at the table – anywhere but directly at Eddie.

“Bret didn’t even know –” Eddie says before he quickly trails off, and Richie’s eyes snap to him. Eddie hasn’t said a name before, but the way he says it, Richie knows that Bret is the one who Eddie was seeing, even if only for a small period of time.

“Ah, uh,” Richie stammers, thanking the waitress as she sets down another glass of beer. He takes a large sip of it before setting it down again. “Do you want to . . . talk about him?”

Richie glances at Eddie, who is watching him with a small frown on his face. Richie knows he probably looks so fucking erratic right now, eyes darting all over the restaurant in an attempt to avoid Eddie’s gaze. He doesn’t know if he wants to hear about this guy, the one Eddie tried to move on with. He doesn’t know if it’ll help knowing Eddie was still trying to be happy, but he does know it’ll fucking hurt his own weeping heart to hear about it.

“There’s not much to talk about,” Eddie admits with a shrug. “I don’t even know if we were officially ‘dating,’ if that’s even what people in their 40s call it. I never called him my boyfriend which, in the end, was kind of why we ended whatever it was. I wasn’t in it. I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t feeling anything.”

Richie looks at Eddie then and is surprised to find that Eddie is looking directly at him. His eyes are drawn and there’s a slight frown on his face, and Richie feels as if he is staring directly into his soul. He doesn’t know why his insides are churning or why it feels like his stomach is in knots. Richie has seen people – if you count taking a few guys home for a quick fuck as ‘seeing’ – but he couldn’t even think about having a new boyfriend or replacing Eddie. That part of his heart was sealed as soon as Eddie got on the plane, stitched together with invincible yarn that could only be snipped apart by Eddie Kaspbrak.

“Sorry,” Richie mumbles after a moment, thanking the waitress when she brings the pizza to the table. He takes a slice and sets it on his plate.

“It’s really fine,” Eddie says softly. He looks up from his pizza slice and meets Richie’s eyes again. “Rich. You know I . . .”

Richie takes another bite and watches Eddie as he trails off. Richie swallows and feels his heart pounding in his chest, constricting and making it hard for him to breathe, making him feel like he can’t focus on anything but Eddie and what Eddie is saying.

But Eddie doesn’t go on, so Richie thinks he should maybe help him out at least a little bit.

“I know,” he says softly. “I know. Me too.”

And Richie might not know what Eddie was going to say, but he thinks he knows well enough.

That night, they go to bed purposefully wrapped around one another. Richie feels shaken and a little frayed in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time, and he thinks that Eddie must sense it because as soon as they’re in the bed and under the covers, Eddie is wrapping his arms around him and resting his head on Richie’s chest. Richie wraps one arm around Eddie’s back and lets his arm rub up and down Eddie’s arm. Eddie sighs against his chest and Richie swears he presses a soft kiss to his shirt, but he doesn’t let himself think about it for too long. He dozes off to sleep to the soft sounds of Eddie’s breath against his chest and the feeling of his warmth pressed against Richie’s body.

* * *

DAY 3

“Really. That’s really what you’re going to fucking wear.”

Richie glances down at his shirt and shrugs. He doesn’t see the problem with his bright purple t-shirt that says ‘1 Tequila, 2 Tequila, 3 Tequila, FLOOR.’

“We’re just going to the beach,” Richie replies. “It’ll come off anyway.”

Eddie stares at him and Richie feels like he’s looking into his soul again. He straightens out the front of his shirt and shifts from foot to foot, trying to ignore Eddie’s gaze and realizing that Eddie is going to get to see him shirtless all day long. And that Eddie will also be shirtless all day long. He is fucked.

“Go put your tiny little swim shorts on and let’s go,” Richie says after a few moments. He clears his throat and turns to grab his towel off the back of the chair.

“They aren’t tiny!” Eddie shouts as he grabs them from the top of his suitcase and heads into the bathroom. “They are a perfectly respectable size.”

“They’re tiny, babe,” Richie replies. “You always wore the shortest you could while still being considered a swim trunk. And you hated them baggy.”

“Yeah, because they fall off if they’re baggy, dipshit,” Eddie snipes as he comes back out of the bathroom in, true to Richie’s word, swim trunks that fall just above mid-thigh and a tight black tank top.

“Well, fuck me,” Richie says before he can even think about it. Eddie blinks at him, and it takes Richie’s brain a second to catch up with what he just said. “Oh. Uh.”

Eddie shrugs, and if that isn’t something that’s going to leave Richie reeling and trying to interpret the meaning of it for the next several hours, then he doesn’t know what is.

“Maybe,” Eddie deadpans before grabbing his towel. “Let’s go.”

Richie grabs their cooler full of water bottles and beers and wine coolers and follows Eddie out of the hotel room. He absolutely does not stare at Eddie’s ass as trails behind him. Absolutely not. That would not be a thing an ex-husband should do.

But he can’t ignore the way the Eddie’s eyes trailed slowly down his body when he came out of the bathroom in his own swim shorts, or the way that Eddie woke up again this morning pressed against back, his hands roaming under the front of Richie’s t-shirt as he sleepily mumbled a good morning into Richie’s shoulder.

Richie spreads his towel on the sand and sets his sunglasses back on his face. He glances over at Eddie just as Eddie is pulling the tank top up and over his head, his arms stretching out above him and his muscles flexing as he lifts it up and tosses it to the side.

Richie lets his eyes trail up Eddie’s chest. He’s still just as toned as he was all those years ago, maybe even more. Eddie’s always been a gym rat and it doesn’t surprise Richie that he might have started going even more once he moved to a new country.

“A picture will last longer,” Eddie says dryly as he sits down on his towel, brushing some stray sand off of it before lying down. “Take yours off, asshole. You’ll start complaining about how hot you are if you leave that monstrosity on any longer.”

“You just want to see me shirtless,” Richie replies with a wicked grin, bunching the fabric on the back of his neck before tugging it up and off.

“I am a gay man,” Eddie sighs. His eyes trail down Richie’s body again, and Richie physically has to resist the urge to curl in on himself, distinctly aware of his significant lack of abs while sitting on a towel next to Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, hottie extraordinaire.

Richie clears his throat and opens the cooler, pulling a wine cooler out for Eddie and handing it to him before grabbing a beer for himself.

They drink in comfortable silence for a few moments. Richie tries to keep himself from glancing over at Eddie every few seconds but, well. It’s hard when Eddie looks like _that_ and when he’s still yearning over Eddie like they haven’t been apart for five years.

Richie thinks they should probably talk about this, whatever there is to talk about. They’ve just been enjoying their time together and Eddie seems like he’s actually enjoying his vacation. Richie wonders what they would be like right now if they were still married and here on their actual wedding anniversary trip. They would probably be sharing a towel, and Eddie would probably be ranting about Richie’s lack of sunscreen and how he was going to be complaining about sunburns tomorrow, and –

“Put some sunscreen on, shithead,” Eddie’s voice cuts through Richie’s thoughts as a bottle of sunscreen is tossed at his head. “You’ll be complaining about sunburns for the rest of the week if you forget.”

Richie blinks at the sunscreen for a moment before grabbing it. He begins to lather it on and wonders how it’s possible he still knows Eddie just as well as he did five years ago. How does it feel like no time has passed when it’s been the slowest and worst five years of Richie’s life?

Richie only wonders if Eddie feels the same.

They spend the day lounging in the sun and splashing in the water and drinking. Richie tugs Eddie under the surface of the ocean one time and Eddie comes up shouting and swearing enough that he gets a few glares from a group of moms down the beach. Richie cackles as Eddie grumpily stomps back up towards their towels and flops down onto his with his arms crossed.

Richie jogs to catch back up with him, because he absolutely will not miss an opportunity to rib at a grumpy Eddie, it is one of his favorite pastimes –

Richie’s foot catches on something soft but firm, and he feels himself falling face first into the sand before he can even think about it. He lifts his head up and coughs, spitting sand and saliva out of his mouth. “Blegh,” he murmurs, trying to figure out how he ended up in this position in the first place.

“Maybe watch where you’re going next time,” Eddie deadpans from his left. Richie glances over and sees Eddie crouched down next to him. His sunglasses are on again and Richie can see his eyebrow raised at him just over the rim of his glasses. “You killed that kid’s sandcastle.”

“I think it almost killed me, actually,” Richie sighs, pushing himself up to his feet. “I’m too old for this shit.”

“You’re okay?” Eddie asks, his eyes trailing over Richie’s body again, this time like he’s checking for any damage.

“Just a damaged ego,” Richie replies, dusting sand off his ass with a sigh and trying to ignore how Eddie’s eyes trail after his hands as he finishes getting the sand off.

Richie suddenly feels overwhelmed and drained, like tripping over the sandcastle somehow shook all the feelings out of him in addition to whatever was left of his ego. He heads back towards their towels and sits back down on it, dusting some sand off the corner of it with his hand.

“I’m gonna flag down the beach waiter,” Richie says, craning his neck around to see if he can spot him. “I’m starving.”

“Me, too,” Eddie says, sitting back down next to him. “Burger and fries, please.”

“You got it, Spagheds,” Richie says as he waves the waiter over. “No onions, right?”

“Oh, uh, right,” Eddie whispers, and Richie swallows and looks away from him to tell the waiter their orders.

They eat in silence, tired and worn-out from the sun and a little tipsy now that the cooler of wine and beer and water is almost empty. Richie feels like he can’t quite grasp anything, like something is simmering just under the surface but he doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know how how to access it or let it out.

The beach is emptying as the sun begins to set, as the warm tones of reds and pinks and oranges begin to shine on the ocean. It gets quieter, all the children and their parents now back at the hotel or at dinner or splashing in the pool. It’s just them and a few other people, but they’re all far enough away where Richie barely even registers them.

“I would have stayed,” Eddie’s voice cuts through the silence after a few moments. Richie blinks around his sandwich, glancing over at Eddie to see him picking at a fry on his plate. “If you had asked. I would have.”

And Richie knows this, and it’s exactly why he couldn’t ask Eddie to stay.

“I know,” he says honestly, because there’s truly nothing left to lose at this point. He’s already lost it. “I couldn’t ask, though. I didn’t want to be the only reason you stayed.”

“You were the only reason for everything,” Eddie whispers. His voice is soft now, and it cracks a bit at the end. He clears his throat. “It wouldn’t have been any different.”

Richie sucks in a breath, setting his sandwich back down on the plate and looking up at the sky. He feels like a frayed wire about to spark, and he figures he might as well take the plunge and light the fire.

“I would have gone with you if you had asked,” Richie admits. He knows that Eddie knows this; he’d told Eddie as much five years ago.

“I know, but I couldn’t ask that of you, either,” Eddie whispers. “Your job was here, Rich. Your life was here.”

“You were my life.”

It slips out before Richie can think about it, before he can realize that he maybe shouldn’t have said that to his ex-husband. But it’s true, and he can’t take it back now. Eddie was his life for so long and he doesn’t feel whole without him.

Richie glances over at Eddie, who’s now looking at him with wide eyes and a slight frown on his face. His eyes are glassy, either from the reflection of the water or the shine of the sun or unshed tears.

“I know,” Eddie whispers. Richie watches as he reaches a hand over and hovers it above Richie’s thigh for a moment before letting it rest on top of his knee. His thumb traces along the soft hair on his thigh, and Richie feels his breath catch in his throat. “You were mine, too. I’ve never loved anybody like I loved you.”

“We could have kept in touch,” Richie replies softly, bringing the conversation back to the one they tried to have on their first night here. Richie stares at Eddie’s hand as he waits for a response and thinks that he’s already laid his heart out on the line. There really is nothing to lose. He lays his hand down on top of Eddie’s, and Eddie immediately turns his hand on Richie’s knee and slides his fingers between Richie’s.

“I didn’t feel like I could do that to you,” Eddie murmurs as Richie stares at their hands, watching as Eddie’s thumb strokes along the back of Richie’s hand. “I was the one who left. I didn’t want you hanging onto me.” 

“I would’ve called if I knew that was why,” Richie says softly. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“I always want to talk to you,” Eddie replies instantly. “Always.”

Eddie’s hand lets go of Richie’s, and Richie watches as it slides up his thigh, coming just under the bottom hem of his swim shorts. He feels his breath hitch in his throat, and he brings his gaze up to find Eddie staring at him.

“I would do it differently if I could,” Eddie whispers, and Richie realizes that they’re suddenly closer, their faces just a few inches away, close enough that he can hear Eddie’s whispers clearly and feel his breath fanning across his face. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever love anybody like I loved you,” Richie whispers, and then Eddie is leaning in and Richie meets him halfway. Eddie’s mouth is soft and warm, his other hand coming to wrap around Richie’s shoulders and tug him closer. Richie moans into his mouth and cups Eddie’s face, his other hand trailing along his chest as he lets out a small groan. Eddie bites his lip once, and Richie swears it’s all over.

It feels like coming home to the smell of Thai takeout or burnt lasagna (because Eddie can’t cook for shit), like letting Eddie wrap him in a hug after a bad day, or like folding laundry on the bed together after a day spent doing chores and cleaning around the house. It tastes like Eddie’s signature BLT sandwich, the only thing he could make that he would make Richie for lunch at least three times a week, claiming it was healthier than whatever takeout sandwich he would get instead. It reminds Richie of everything he’s been missing for the past five years and everything he thought he would get to have for the rest of his life.

Eddie trails his mouth down Richie’s jaw, and Richie takes a deep breath before tilting his head to the side to give Eddie more room. He’s vaguely aware that they are still on the beach, in public, even if it is mostly deserted by now. The sun is setting below the ocean’s horizon, and a dark shadow is beginning to set over the sand and water.

Richie takes Eddie’s face in both of his hands, bringing his mouth to his again and groaning as Eddie immediately opens up for him.

“Rich,” Eddie breathes against his mouth, and Richie feels like he can’t get him close enough. He wants, wants, wants in a way he hasn’t let himself feel in years. “Fuck, Richie.”

“Missed you,” Richie murmurs, mouthing along Eddie’s jawline and nipping at his ear. Eddie moans and Richie trails a hand across his chest. “You’re so fucking hot, Eds, shit.”

Eddie groans and abruptly stands up. Richie freezes, hands still in place from where they were just on Eddie. He looks up at him and furrows his eyebrow, letting his hands drop on his lap.

“Come on,” Eddie says, holding a hand out and tugging Richie up. “Take me to bed before we’re arrested for public indecency.”

* * *

They stumble into the hotel room, all roaming hands and exploring mouths. Neither of them bothered to put their shirts back on, choosing to dash into the hotel lobby and into the elevator before anybody could notice.

Eddie backs Richie into the bed, shoving him into it when his knees collide with the mattress and he tumbles backwards. Richie groans as Eddie climbs on top of him, knees resting on either side of his hips as he leans down and starts mouthing along Richie’s collarbone.

Richie moans and tugs Eddie back up for a kiss that he means to be hard, but his lips just barely brush against Eddie’s. Eddie hums against his mouth and presses one, two soft kisses to his lips before pulling back just enough to look Richie in the eyes. Richie’s hands slide along Eddie’s back, slipping just below the waistband of his swim trunks.

Richie feels the air around them shift, the desperation seeping away and replaced with a soft, nostalgic tenderness that Richie didn’t realize existed before. Eddie’s looking at him in a way that’s so familiar, so achingly and fond and tender. It makes Richie’s heart thump in a way it hasn’t in five years. His lips, his heart, and his soul feel bruised now that Eddie Kaspbrak is back in his life.

He reaches a hand up and strokes the hair off of Eddie’s forehead. Eddie smiles at him softly, just for a moment, before leaning down to kiss him again.

“Eddie,” he breathes after a few minutes, his other hand creeping down the back of Eddie’s swim trunks again. “I want . . .”

“I know,” Eddie murmurs, mouthing his way down Richie’s throat, down his chest, down, down, down. Eddie slips his swim trunks off in one quick motion, tossing them off to the side. He moans as Eddie takes him into his mouth, and Richie feels a thousand things at once. He feels the heat and warmth of Eddie’s mouth, the firm pressure of his arm resting against his hip bones as he holds Richie down, the feeling of what was and what could have been that overwhelms him as Eddie swallows around him.

Eddie hums as Richie chants his name, one hand tugging at Eddie’s hair while the other grasps at the sheets. It feels so familiar, as he comes down Eddie’s throat, as he nudges Eddie up until he’s straddling his chest, as he swallows around him and listens as Eddie gasps and moans and tangles a hand in his hair. This is Eddie who he’s loved since he was 21, who he’s loved ever since.

“Richie,” Eddie breathes, and Richie just hums around him as he comes.

They lie there after, Eddie’s head resting on Richie’s chest and Richie’s hand stroking through his hair. He thinks about how easy it would be to just say “I love you,” how many times he almost said it while Eddie was kissing him, and he really wonders how he didn’t say it as he was calling Eddie’s name. Eddie is breathing softly against his chest, and Richie wishes he could freeze time right now, right in this moment where everything feels perfect.

“M’sorry,” Eddie mumbles against his chest. Richie feels him press a soft kiss right below his collarbone, and he doesn’t want this feeling to end again. “Not for this, but. For how things ended up.”

“Not your fault,” Richie whispers, stroking his hand through Eddie’s hair. “It takes two to tango, Spagheds.”

And it did, Richie knows this. He could have pushed harder; he could have just asked Eddie to stay and they could have worked around whatever problems that may have arose from that. There were so many other options they could have taken, but they were blinded by love and fear and had too little time to think, too much pressure to choose.

“I’m not sorry about this,” Eddie says, like he wants to make it abundantly clear that he doesn’t regret what just happened. “I missed it. You always made me feel so good.”

“Mm,” Richie hums. “And you still suck dick like it’s your job.”

Eddie laughs, and Richie wants to record the sound so he can listen to it forever. He doesn’t want to think about what’s going to happen at the end of the week, once he goes back to California and Eddie goes back to England.

“You’ve been trying to get in my pants since the first night here,” Richie says, grinning at him and poking him in the side. “You kept feeling up my arm that first night.”

“I was worried about you, dickhead,” Eddie huffs. “You were having a meltdown. I was trying to comfort you.”

“Whatever makes you sleep better at night,” Richie says around a yawn. “At least now you got it out of your system.”

Richie goes quiet and looks down at Eddie, who’s looking up at him with dark eyes and a small smile.

“Or . . . not?” Richie stammers after a moment. Eddie lets out a low laugh and presses a kiss to Richie’s collarbone.

“I kind of want to fuck you,” Eddie muses, too casual, like he’s talking about what he wants to watch on TV.

“Oh.” Richie blinks and thinks, yeah, he kind of wants that, too.

Eddie’s arms wrap around him again, and before Richie knows what’s happening, Eddie’s rolling onto his back and pulling Richie down on top of him, into a crushing, bruising kiss.

* * *

DAY 4

Richie wakes up the day before their anniversary fully wrapped around Eddie. Light is streaming into the hotel room through the crease between the curtains, pale and pink with the rising sun.

He blinks his eyes a few times and lets out a soft sigh before glancing at Eddie. His arms are wrapped fully around Eddie’s waist, his front pressed fully along Eddie’s backside. Both of their legs are tangled in the sheet, and Richie glances around the one half of the room and notes the swim trunks thrown haphazardly to the side.

He feels groggy and sated, light in a way he hasn’t felt in years. He thinks it’s probably a combination of what happened last night, the lack of daily responsibility that comes with being on vacation, and the fact that he is simply in Eddie Kaspbrak’s presence again after five years.

He knows it wasn’t a mistake. They both obviously wanted it and missed it and needed it, but now, in the glow of the rising Hawaiian sun, Richie wonders what’s going to happen next.

He and Eddie will be leaving in three days, back to California for Richie and England for Eddie. Maybe they’ll keep in touch this time, now that they’ve cleared the air and they, mostly, know where the other was coming from.

Richie sighs and presses a kiss to Eddie’s bare shoulder. Eddie mostly knows what’s on his mind, minus the one major part that consumes most of Richie’s thoughts. It might be pathetic to still be in love with your ex-husband, but Richie always had a weeping heart, too quick to attach and too hard to release.

Eddie lets out a groan and stirs in Richie’s arms. He stretches his arms out of front of him and yawns, and Richie smiles into his shoulder, his hands rubbing along Eddie’s bare chest. If he’s only going to have this for a few more minutes, then he’s going to make the most of it.

“Morning,” Eddie mumbles as he lets out a sigh.

“Hey, Spagheds,” Richie says, pressing a kiss to the junction between his shoulder and neck. He pauses after, wondering if he’s maybe crossing a line, but Eddie is making no effort to move away from his embrace.

Eddie sighs again, his eyes drifting closed for a moment before opening and turning his head to look over his shoulder at Richie. “Think I forgot how fucking big you are,” Eddie mumbles, letting his head drop onto the pillow again with a groan. “You can literally just wrap me up in your arms.”

Richie barks out a laugh and squeezes Eddie softly around the middle. “You like it.”

“Of course I fucking do,” Eddie grumbles into the pillow. “I’m not a fucking moron.”

“Mm.” Richie hums into his shoulder and thinks, _I could die like this._ Because he could, and at least he would be dying a happy man.

After a few minutes of just lying there, Eddie finally rolls to the side, disentangling himself from the sheets and away from Richie’s arms. “Let’s get room service for breakfast,” he says, grabbing the bedside phone. “Omelets?”

“Yeah, get me –”

“Ham, turkey, swiss, and tomatoes” Eddie finishes for him, dialing the number to the hotel restaurant. “I know.”

Richie blinks at him and swallows, ignoring how his heart swells in his chest and threatens to burst. It wouldn’t be good to let everything spill now, not when they still have a few days left of their trip. Making things awkward now by confessing his ever-lasting love for Eddie would only serve to make the rest of their days here awkward and uncomfortable.

But Eddie knows him, still knows all the intricate details about him after all of these years. He’s here, remembering Richie’s coffee order and his preferred omelet fillings, taking what should have been their joint 15th wedding anniversary trip by himself. Richie knows that this means something, but – well, he really has never been good at thinking good things can happen to him. Not anymore.

“So,” Richie says, too casual, like he’s not about to ask a question that really could make or break him. “Was that just a one-time thing, or . . .?”

He trails off, glancing at Eddie. Eddie sets the phone down and looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Technically, that was a three-time thing,” he deadpans, sitting back on the edge of the bed. Richie laughs and Eddie ducks his head as a faint blush spreads across his cheeks. He continues. “But, I mean . . . I don’t know if we should keep doing it.”

He doesn’t say that he doesn’t _want_ to keep doing it, just that he doesn’t know if they _should_. Which Richie, actually, whole-heartedly agrees with.

“Partly because I do actually want to leave the hotel room and do Hawaii things,” Eddie continues, voice too fast, eyes darting around the room. “I’m not sure I would want to leave if we did that again.”

Richie blinks at him before falling back onto the bed and looking up at the ceiling. He can’t look at Eddie in his small boxers right now, not while they’re talking about whether or not that is going to happen again.

Richie stretches his arms out above his head before folding them behind his head on the pillow. The sheets are draped over his waist as he glances over at Eddie. “So. Just a three-time thing then?”

Eddie is still looking at him, and Richie raises an eyebrow at him when he doesn’t respond. His hand twitches on the bed before he sighs and lays back down, rolling toward Richie.

“Four-time thing,” Eddie says quietly, running a hand up Richie’s chest. “We have 25 minutes until the room service is here.”

Richie pulls him into a hard kiss, because he really isn’t about to say no.

* * *

It does stay a four-time thing for the most of the day. They do manage to leave the hotel room after breakfast. Eddie booked them a tour of Waimea canyon, which Richie is thankful to find consists mostly of driving up and stopping at various scenic overlooks. Richie gets a little sunburnt, and Eddie berates him for not using a high enough SPF and for not reapplying as frequently as he needs to.

It’s so achingly familiar and tender that it makes Richie’s insides churn with nostalgia and desire for things to be different. Eddie was always a perfect match for him, able to snipe him down while building him up at the same time. Their constant support for each other was what made them work so well, up until it didn’t.

There’s a luau at the hotel that night. Eddie made them a reservation and requested the VIP area, up front and with a full-course meal. When he said that Richie Tozier was his plus one, there was very little fuss about giving him the reservation at last minute.

“You always did like using my name to get yourself luxurious things,” Richie says as he slips on a pair of shorts and one of his nicer button-down shirts. He glances at the bedside drawer where he hid the chain with the ring on it. He peeks over at Eddie and sees him consumed with his hair, so he quickly opens the drawer, take the chain out, and puts it around his neck, tucking the ring under the collar of his shirt.

“That was the whole point of being married to you,” Eddie quips as he finishes brushing the last of the mousse into his hair.

“I was barely famous at 25,” Richie replies with a laugh, slipping on his shoes.

“No, but you sucked dick like a professional, so.”

Richie barks out another laugh. “You say that like I don’t still do that.”

Eddie just hums, and then they’re off and heading towards the beach. Richie thinks it should be weirder, talking about their past marriage and relationship so casually. There should be more tension and animosity, but there’s just not. They fell back into things so easily and casually that Richie almost thinks it’s how it was meant to be.

They take their seats, directly next to each other so that they both have a full view of the luau in front of them. Eddie is chattering about how the fire is definitely a safety hazard when the waiter comes over and smiles at them both before his eyes freeze when they land on Richie.

“Holy shit,” he says with a laugh. “You’re Richie Tozier.”

“Sure am,” Richie says with a grin. “Nice to meet you.”

“What are you doing in Hawaii?” He asks. He’s probably a little younger than Richie, mid-thirties, but he’s looking at Richie like he’s an idol, like he has a major celebrity crush on him and he’s meeting him for the first time –

And oh, well. That’s probably exactly what’s happening, actually.

“Just a little me time,” Richie answers. He can feel Eddie bristling a little next to him, clearly wanting the guy to just take their drink orders and leave.

“Hey, that’s great, man!” He says, his eyes trailing down Richie’s chest in a way that makes Richie shift a little with self-consciousness. He isn’t really used to this, being checked out by somebody. Usually his fans are just trying to get him to crack a joke. Most people know that Richie Tozier is perpetually single after his divorce, and nobody has ever blatantly tried to change that.

“I’ll have a Mai Tai,” Eddie’s voice cuts in, causing the waiter to look over at him. “Rich?

“Oh, uh, rum and coke, please,” Richie tells him. The waiter smiles at him without even glancing at Eddie.

“You got it. I’m Colin, just wave me over if you need anything.” He heads off towards the counter, presumably to get their drinks.

The luau starts as the hula dancers come out onto the stage. Salads are brought out as a starter course, and Richie starts to chatter about it as Eddie continues to bristle beside him.

“Here’s your drinks,” the waiter says as he returns, setting two napkins down and then the drinks on top of each napkin. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

And then he winks at Richie, and Richie swears that Eddie is going to combust next to him.

Richie takes a sip of his drink and sees that on the napkin, there’s a phone number written in small handwriting. Damn. Hawaiian waiters have more balls than anyone Richie has ever experienced.

“The fuck,” Eddie mutters next to him. Richie glances over at him and sees him furrowing his brow at the napkin.

“He’s bold, I’ll give him that,” Richie says with a shrug as he takes a sip of his drink. “Ballsy.”

And Richie would really let it go. He’s obviously not about to do anything with the innocent phone number, and he’s just here to enjoy the luau and some drinks under the setting Hawaiian sun.

But then he feels Eddie’s hand slip onto his thigh under the table and, well. That is something that Richie can honestly say he wasn’t expecting.

The evening goes on and the waiter continues to flirt with Richie every chance he gets. Eddie slides his chair closer and closer to Richie until he’s all but pressed against his side, whispering into Richie’s ear about the show, his hand higher up on his leg now, pressing hard into the muscle of his thigh right below his hip. It’s nearing the end of the night and the fire dancer is in the middle of his final set, and Richie is really not sure how much longer he can keep this up without having to do something about it.

“He thinks he can flirt with you right in front of me,” Eddie says, breath hot in his ear, his hand skimming over the front of his shorts and causing Richie to hold in a low whine. “He doesn’t know what we did last night or this morning. Doesn’t know how good I can make you feel.”

Eddies lips brush his neck just below his ear. Richie now has one arm wrapped around Eddie’s shoulders, and he feels that this is maybe not a great idea. They aren’t married, they aren’t together, they aren’t really _anything_ , but. He knows that’s not true; that’s never been true for them.

“No one ever has,” Richie admits. Eddie groans into his throat before he stands up abruptly, grabbing Richie’s hand and tugging him up with him.

“Come on, come on,” Eddie says, voice hushed and low as he starts to quickly walk across the lawn and back towards the hotel. Richie feels like he’s about to trip over his feet, all loose-limbed and filled with want from Eddie basically hanging himself off of Richie for the past two hours.

Eddie pushes him into the wall of the elevator as soon as the doors close. The kiss is dirty from the start and only gets dirtier. Richie sucks Eddie’s tongue into his mouth and Eddie lets out a moan just as the elevator doors open. He drags Richie down to their room, struggling to get the card in the door as Richie presses himself along Eddie’s back.

“Five-time thing, then,” Richie whispers into his neck, sucking a spot right at the base of Eddie’s neck where it meets his shoulder.

“Five-time thing,” Eddie agrees, pushing the door open and dragging Richie inside.

Eddie presses him hard into the mattress as he fucks into him, chanting Richie’s name and leaving bite marks across Richie’s neck and chest. Richie is so full of lust and want and desire that he doesn’t even realize that this feels like more than a jealous fuck; it feels like a hello and a goodbye and everything in between.

They lay there after, breathing hard and sweaty and overwrought with emotion. Richie has a hand tangled in Eddie’s hair as he rests against Richie’s chest, his fingers tracing one of the fresh bruises left by Eddie's own mouth.

The clock on the bedside table changes to midnight, and Richie purposefully does not think about how it is officially what should have been their fifteenth wedding anniversary.

“So good to me,” Eddie mumbles, pressing a kiss to Richie’s chest, and Richie thinks, _yeah, I could be good to you forever, if you’d have me._

Eddie dozes off, and Richie wonders how much it’s going to hurt when they finally have to part ways again.

* * *

DAY 5

Richie wakes up early the next morning. He feels skittish and anxious, like he usually has on this day for the past five years.

He extracts himself from Eddie’s octopus hold and goes to take a shower, wiping all the sweat and grime and everything else off of him from the night before. A fresh start, even if he doesn’t want it.

He looks at his phone, at the reminder that they can pick up their boat rental and take it out to the Napali coast for the day at any time after 10 AM. Richie really wonders if they should even be spending this day together, but he thinks it might be a little too late to back out now.

Eddie wakes up a few moments later. They don’t talk much as they get ready, putting on their swim trunks and t-shirt and sandals. Richie packs them a cooler filled with sandwiches and salads and snacks from room service, and then they’re off. They talk about nothing significant while in the car, and Richie is thankful for even a brief distraction from what today should have meant to them.

They load onto the boat and Richie drives them off, following the map that was given to them by the tour company with instructions to return the boat by 5 PM. They have the whole day to spend in the sun, enjoying the tropical coast of Hawaii and with each other.

As Richie drives, he tries not to think about how the scene would have looked if they were still married. He doesn’t think about how Eddie might have been perched on his lap instead of sitting in the back of the boat, trailing his fingers in the water as they speed through it. Or, Eddie might have been sitting next to him, poking him with his foot and calling him an asshole for driving too fast, or –

“Slow down, dipshit,” Eddie says from the back, lifting his glasses off for a moment to glare at Richie. “You are not an expert boater and this is the ocean.”

It really is the silliest of things that makes Richie’s heart constrict in his chest.

They eat their lunch, watching the water flowing around them and looking at the mountains in front of them. It really is a gorgeous view, and Richie is grateful for the experience despite the context for the trip.

“Rich,” Eddie’s voice cuts through the silence. Richie glances over at him and sees Eddie staring down at the sandwich on his plate.

“Hm?” He hums when Eddie doesn’t go on. He eats a chip and sits back, propping himself up on his elbows so that he’s almost lying back, but still upright enough so that he can look at Eddie.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says finally. “For everything. I wish we could have a redo.”

Richie takes a deep breath and looks up at the sky, thankful for his sunglass for keeping him from being blinded by the sun. “I'm sorry, too. But. Nothing we can do about it now.”

“There _is_ something we can do about it now.” Eddie’s voice is firm, insistent, commanding Richie’s attention. Richie glances over at him, and Eddie is looking at him with big eyes and a determined expression. “Rich. We can fix it.”

And Richie hates how his heart speeds up, how his mind starts to work, how he can feel his hopes rising, just a little bit. It will only make it that much worse when they realize they can't fix it, that they can't undo anything. When they have to part ways again, this is only going to make it hurt that much more. 

“How the fuck are we supposed to do that?” Richie asks with an incredulous laugh. “Seriously, Eds. We are in the exact same situation we were in before. I’m not moving to England. You’re not moving back to the states. We wouldn’t while we were actually husbands, why the fuck would we do it now?”

Richie says it, but he knows he would. If Eddie were to ask him, he would drop everything and move to be with Eddie. He’s had enough fame for his lifetime; the rest of his life could be spent in Eddie’s presence and die a happy man.

“I am, actually.”

Richie looks at Eddie again, his eyes drawn with confusion. “You are what?”

“Moving. Back to the states.”

And, fuck, if that doesn’t make Richie’s mind start racing. Eddie is apparently moving back to the states. All of this, the past five years for nothing, Eddie moving away only to come back, to pretend like he never left, to –

“What the fuck do you mean?” Richie asks, his voice raising now. “You’re going to – what – move back to the states just because you realized that hey, I’m still here and I still want you? Fuck off, man. I’m not just here for your convenience.”

“Richie, no, that’s –” Eddie groans. He scoots closer to Richie, tugging at his arm until he’s sitting fully upright. “This has been the plan for a few months now. My office is opening a Los Angeles branch and I volunteered to oversee it. It’s a promotion and I wanted to be back in California, anyway. I never really got attached to England like I thought I would.”

“So, what, you were just going to come back to Los Angeles and not tell me? Not even a phone call? Were you just going to pretend like your ex-husband wasn’t there waiting for you?”

“You were waiting for me?”

Richie opens his mouth and closes it again, once, twice, like a gaping fish in a fish tank. He feels insane with the thought of Eddie back in California, back in his presence and in his daily life, even though he has no idea if that’s what’s going to happen, if that’s what Eddie wants.

“I was going to call you,” Eddie says, his voice soft and sincere. “When I got back from this trip, I was going to call you and tell you and was going to at least _try._ I didn’t know if you would want me back or if you would even want to see me again, but. I at least had to try.”

“Why?” Richie asks before he can think about it, and he isn’t sure if he wants to know the answer. But the question is out there, and there’s no taking it back.

“Because I missed you, asshole,” Eddie says with a huff, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Because I still love you.”

“Oh,” Richie whispers. His heart is beating in his chest, pounding, ready to break free from its shackles that have been present since Eddie got on the plane. He’s skeptical, hopeful, nervous, all at the same time, all dueling for his final decision, his final thought, his final moment.

Eddie continues. “Even if you didn’t love me anymore, even if you didn’t want me or even want to stay in contact with me, just knowing I was closer to you was enough for me. All I ever wanted was to be close to you. That never changed.”

That's all it takes. In a split second, Richie is moving to his knees, ignoring the way they creak and ache as he shifts over them. Like this, in this position, he’s closer to Eddie, close enough to reach and grab him and kiss him. So he does.

Their mouths meet in a soft kiss, tender in a way that wasn’t present their past two nights of kissing. Eddie’s arms wrap around Richie’s shoulders, tugging him closer until Richie is all but straddling his lap. Richie’s hand cups Eddie’s face, keeping him close and keeping his mouth within kissing distance.

“I never stopped loving you,” Richie whispers against his mouth, between kisses, pressing kiss after kiss to Eddie’s lips because he _can_. “Couldn’t even bring myself to try. Loving you without having you was better than not loving you at all.”

“Richie,” Eddie breathes. “Fuck.”

Their lunches forgotten, they kiss until the sun begins to set and they have to take the boat back. They kiss in the car before heading back to the hotel, on the beach as they watch the sun set below the ocean.

They make love that night, in a way they haven’t since before Eddie boarded the plane. And after, in the glow of the moonlight streaming through the hotel window, Richie shows Eddie the ring he wears on the chain, and Eddie shows him the ring he brought in his suitcase.

“This was supposed to be our anniversary trip,” Eddie explains, playing with the ring before looking up at Richie. “Of course I was going to bring it.”

Richie slides it onto Eddie’s ring finger and kisses him again. In the morning, they’ll make plans. Eddie will probably just move back in with Richie, but they need to plan logistics and moving dates. Richie will probably need to take a few more days off work and postpone some more shows. But for now, they have each other and the future, and Richie’s heart sings in his chest as they fall asleep.

Richie doesn’t think about how Tropical Storm Leviticus was never mentioned again. He doesn’t think about how the weather during the trip was perfect or how easy it is for both of them to book new flights back to the mainland a week from now.

He spins the ring on his finger and thinks of the future, and everything suddenly looks brighter.

* * *

[stan the man]: WHY THE FUCK AM I READING A NEWS ARTICLE SAYING YOU AND EDDIE GOT HITCHED IN HAWAII?

[stan the man]: I will obviously still watch the cats but CALL ME WHEN YOU SEE THESE, RICHARD.

[stan the man]: AND I’M HAPPY FOR YOU. OBVIOUSLY.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Leave a comment if you wish <3
> 
> Come yell on twitter with me [@edskasper](https://twitter.com/edskasper)


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